+III. He pleads with the tender solicitude of a spiritual parent.+--"My little children, of whom I travail in birth again, . . . I desire to be present with you, and to change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you" (vers. 19, 20). As a mother, fearful of losing the affection of her children for whom she has suffered so much, the apostle appeals to his converts in tones of pathetic persuasion. His heart is wrung with anguish as he sees the peril of his spiritual children, and he breaks out into tender and impassioned entreaty. And yet he is perplexed by the attitude they have taken, and as if uncertain of the result of his earnest expostulations. The preacher has to learn to be patient as well as zealous. +Lessons.+--1. _Strong emotions and warm affections are no guarantee for the permanence of religious life._ 2. _How prone are those who have put themselves in the wrong to fix the blame on others._ 3. _Men of the Galatian type are the natural prey of self-seeking agitators._ _GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES._ Ver. 12. _Christian Brotherhood._--Here is: 1. A loving compellation--"Brethren." 2. A submissive address by way of comprecation--"I beseech you." 3. A request most reasonable--"Be ye as I am; for I am as ye are." 4. A wise and prudent preoccupation or prevention which removes all obstructions and forestalls those jealousies, those surmises and groundless suspicions, which are the bane of charity and the greatest enemies to peace. "Ye have not injured me at all." +I. Nature herself hath made all men brethren.+--1. _This may serve to condemn all those who look upon men under other consideration than as men_ or view them in any other shape than as brethren. And the very name of man and of brother should be an amulet for all mankind against the venom of iniquity and injustice. 2. _By this light of nature we may condemn ourselves when any bitterness towards our brother riseth in our hearts,_ and allay or rather root it out as inhuman and unnatural. None can dishonour us more than ourselves do, when one man hath trodden down another as the clay in the streets, when we think ourselves great men by making our brethren little, when we contemn and despise, hate and persecute them. +II. Brethren as Christians professing the same faith.+--There is such a brotherhood that neither error nor sin nor injury can break and dissolve it. 1. _Men may err and yet be brethren._--We may be divided in opinion and yet united in charity. Consider the difficulty of finding out truth in all things and avoiding error, that our brother may err rather from want of light than out of malice and wilfully and conceive it possible we may err as foully as others. 2. _Men may sin and yet be brethren._--Charity, because she may err, nay, because she must err, looks upon every Christian as a brother. If he err, she is a guide to him; if he sin, she is a physician; if he fall, she strives to lift him up, being a light to the blind and a staff to the weak.